Stiglitz Calls Climate Talks a 'Charade,' Pushes Plan C

The liberal economist says voluntary agreements don't work and cap-and-trade is 'doomed to failure'

by Peter Coy

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate economist, is trying to persuade global-warming negotiators that they're marching up a blind alley. He says it's probably too late to achieve anything substantial at the long-awaited United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December, so real progress will have to come afterward.

That's not a message the negotiators want to hear, but Stiglitz doesn't care. "I’m saying we ought to be facing reality. We have to learn from our failures," he said in a phone interview this week.